In the early hours of the morning on Wednesday 18.01.17, armed Israel polices forces entered the unrecognized Bedouin village Umm Al-Hieran in the Naqab\Negev. The residents had been negotiating an agreement with the authorities during the night, so they did not expect to be facing policemen and bulldozers that same morning. The policemen who stormed the village shot and killed a man, Yacoub Al-Qi’an, as he was trying to leave the village in his car, he lost control over the car which ran over and killed a policeman. Yacoub Al-Qi’an was a well known and respected teacher, he was leaving the house with his papers and laptop so as not to see his home destroyed. His papers were thrown all over around his destroyed home.

“They had us all rounded up, we couldn’t go anywhere. One group was in the upper part of the village. They separated the men, putting them inside the mosque, and the women just outside the mosque. They did not let us come near the families whose houses were being destroyed,” said one of the women about what happened during the night. The families whose homes were destroyed were also rounded up and separated from the men. They weren’t allowed to take anything from the their homes, they went out with the clothes on their back and nothing else. Around 10 o’clock, teams with containers arrived to evacuate the homes, but as was evident from the ruins of the homes, it was all for show. When the bulldozers arrived they destroyed them homes with everything from headscarves to clothes to electric appliances inside. At the end of the day, the people were left sitting in shock staring at their homes, and every once in a while, with the help of volunteers and neighbours, they would gather enough strength to get up and pull some blankets, mattresses, pots, anything they can salvage, from the ruins.

In the meantime, right next to the village of Umm Al-Hieran, work has already begun for the Jewish settlement of Hiran. The settlement which will be built in Umm Al-Hieran’s place.

]]>749Pella and Umm Qais in a dayhttp://www.nadinenashef.com/daily/pella-and-umm-qais/
Sun, 08 May 2016 11:26:48 +0000http://www.nadinenashef.com/?p=698Finally looking through photographs taken during a recent visit to Jordan. We left super early in the morning in order to make most of the day we had, and visited two beautiful places. The first was the ruins of the ancient city Pella in Jordan, which is right in the middle of a public park families visit on Fridays to picnic while children play among the ruins. The second place was Umm Qais which has a huge park with the ruins of the city of Gadara.

Visiting Istanbul for the first time in 2011 was a bit overwhelming. In terms of size and population it is a huge city. My time in the city was supposed to be only a small part of a two-week trip in Turkey, but I ended up spending nearly a week walking around Istanbul. As overwhelmed as I was, looking back at photographs from my trip only make want to go back for more. [14 photographs, use arrow keys]

Recent waves of violence and continued Zionist attempts to Judaize Al-Aqsa, including a raid and destruction of the mosque, have lead Palestinians across the country to go out and protest against these attacks on Holy Sites and against the continued Israeli occupation.

One of the biggest protests was to be held in Nazareth on Thursday October 8th. In the days following up to the demonstration in Nazareth, which included prominent activists and Knesset members, Israeli police raided the homes of and arrested activists it deemed as organizers of the demonstration (whose names they got from social media websites). On the day of the demonstration great forces of police were stationed at the main entrance of Nazareth where they prohibited the buses with the demonstrators from entering the city.